bizarreville

In a surprising announcement yesterday, Elmer Shtootz, CEO of Burger World, announced that the company’s restaurants would now be accepting food stamps for all purchases of food items, with the exception of hot apple pies.  He said that it was high time that everyone started realizing that poor people get tired of slaving over a hot kitchen stove just like other people, and need a break once in a while.  Mr. Shtootz revealed that when he was a child, his family had to rely on food stamps and would never take him to a fast food chain to enjoy the occasional greasy burger and fries, let alone a milk shake.  He said he was 30 years old before he even tasted a shake, only to find out that he was lactose intolerant.  He did not elaborate further on that.

Shtootz indicated that all franchisees would also be expected to follow the lead of the company restaurants, and accept food stamps.  Any franchisee grousing would be considered grounds for sign removal.

The Bizarreville Health & Human Services Administration reported that restaurant acceptance of food stamps had been strictly prohibited in the past, but they were willing to allow Burger World to accept them on a trial basis.  The BHHS chief said that many food stamp recipients had complained in the past that it was unfair to have such an unreasonable restriction, and she was getting tired of listening to all the whining and bellyaching.

Another major fast food chain, Snarfburger Inc, has filed a charge of Unfair Favoritism by allowing Burger World to have this exclusive benny.  A spokesman indicated the company would take the issue to the Supreme Court if necessary in order to level the playing field in the burger wars.

One critic complained that this action was just going to make these poor people unhealthier that they already were.  He said that Burger World’s burgers have so much fat that it takes one full pound of meat to end up with a quarter-pounder after cooking.  A BW spokesman said, “That’s baloney.”  It was not clear if he was referring to their new baloney burger which went on sale earlier this month, or just cracking wise.

One reporter asked Mr. Shtootz why the company was not permitting hot apple pies to be covered under the food stamp provision.  Shtootz responded that pies would have to be paid in cash in order to prevent the jumbo-size food stamp customers from loading up 4 or 5 dozen pies and running them out of stock.  He said they were also considering placing a limit on orders of fries per food stamp customer, but for now, were adopting a wait-and-see policy.

“The fries question is a much tougher one to deal with,” commented Shtootz.  “Do you cap it at 5 large orders, but allow unlimited small fries orders?  And where does the medium size fit in?  It’s all just too complicated.”

Disclaimer:  all stories in Bizarreville are fiction.  At least for now.

Bizarreville economists recently stated that the Big Recession, largest since World War II, ended 15 months ago.  This announcement came as a big surprise to most people who mistakenly thought things were still in the crapper.

At a news conference, noted Bizarreville University economist Dr. Melvin Derfberger made the announcement and fielded questions from the press.  When asked how he factored the continuing 10 percent unemployment rate into his recession formula, he replied, “Did not really put much weight on that variable.  You see, true unemployment numbers are impossible to pin down since so many people are in and out of the workforce.  Plus, typical unemployment figures don’t normally take into account the illegal Mexicans and Chinese people working in restaurants who basically have zero percent unemployment.  Skews the numbers.”

A second question was asked about how he reconciled his conclusions with the pathetic housing market.  “The housing market’s impact on the economy has been overblown by psuedo-econo-wannabes.  Everybody has got to live somewhere.  Buy one house, sell another.  Build one house, condemn another.  It all balances out, you see.  Next question?”

He was then challenged by one nervous reporter who cited that the stock market was still 30% below pre-recession highs.  Several companies, including Generous Motors went in the tank and slipped their stockholders the worm.  Other companies fell so low in market value, it will probably take generations to recover.  401K’s are hardly worth the paper they are printed on. 

“So what’s you point?” answered Dr. Derfberger.  “Hey, I lost my shirt, too.  Bought several thousand shares of that Donkey Burger stock…remember the one that claimed to be a healthier alternative to beef?  Yeah, I pushed all-in on that one.  But you know what?  I’m still here.”

Finally he was asked about the cratered level of consumer confidence, which predicts a very lean holiday season for retailers.  The good doctor replied, “Confidence, Shmodfidence.”

He summed up his presentation, sensing cynicism in the crowd of reporters, by stating that his analysis was the consensus of over 35 PhD economic professors who, while they’ve never actually been in the workforce or held anything resembling a real job, were still very smart people who sat on many Boards.  He stated some had even won Egg Head awards and a couple had deep, authority-sounding voices that sounded like the bass guy in the Oak Ridge Boys.

Stocks went up in early trading after the announcement, but took a 180-degree turn late in the afternoon to finish 2 percent down for the day.  Futures are sharply lower.

Disclaimer:  All stories in Bizarreville are fiction, even the ones that seem so real.

The Bizarreville Tea Partiers assembled at the Monument Saturday morning, numbering in the hundreds of thousands.  Speakers talked about returning the nation to simple core values, prayer, personal responsibility, and pragmatic leadership.  Speaker after speader took to the podium to express his or her idyllic vision for the future. 

The crowd was initially very enthusiastic.  But they began to become restless, anxious, and soon became agitated when it became quite apparent that no tea was going to be served.  No earl grey, no english breakfast, no darjeeling, no afternoon delight.  No tea.

A small group of tea-drinkers in the back of the crowd started chanting, “We want tea.  We want tea.  We want tea.”  Before you knew it, the whole crowd seemed to erupt into the Tea chant.  The keynote speaker desperately tried to get the rally back on track by talking about tax reductions, investment incentives, and federal budget balancing…normally sure-fire themes.  But clearly the crowd wanted brewed refreshments, probably settling for anything of a brewed nature.

The speaker explained that the “Tea Party” was just a metaphor for the government’s wanton disregard for citizens’ input in regard to tax policy, individual freedoms, health care policy, government bailouts, reckless spending, and arbitrary law-making.  He explained that the nation was wandering in darkness, and needed a movement to help shine the light on their leaders’ misguidedness.  A citizen in the front row yelled out, “Yeah, we’re with you on the darkness thing.  But we still thought you were springing for the tea, man.  I’m parched.”

Eventually some of the rally organizers scrambled, bought out the tea inventories at nearby convenience stores, and started handing out bottles.  But by this time, a large throng of partiers had bailed, and were rumored to had reconvened at several nearby watering holes.

“Next time, don’t forget the friggin’ tea!” the keynote scolded as he stormed out of Monument Park.

Disclaimer:  all stories in Bizarreville are fictional, even the ones that seem pretty darn real.

Federal officials have been outspoken about states wanting to take illegal immigration control into their own hands.  They have been particularly disturbed about Arizona’s proposed law which would give the right to law enforcement to check residency status for scoundrels who rob a convenience store, drive like reckless maniacs, or beat up an innocent child.  Candidates running in primary elections in many other states have stated they support the Arizona law, and would push to have it adopted in their state, if elected.

Government officials have threatened to file law suits over these laws or proposed laws to head them off at the pass.  They say that the federal government has firm quotas on how many illegals are allowed to enter the country, and if states start cracking down, they may fall short of meeting their quotas for illegals.

“We had several months last winter where we fell disappointingly short,” said Illegal Immigration Czar Jose Mafunknutz.  “We tried to open the borders more, even offered free tacos and beer at several border stations, but still could not seem to draw enough interest.  Volume has picked up recently, but we’re afraid that when cold weather starts hitting the midwest, there will be another falloff as the potential aliens elect to just stay home.”

Malfunknutz is very concerned about the potential for profiling if the Arizona law becomes template for other states.  “You cannot discriminate against a person just because he or she is involved in drug trafficking, drunken driving, causing a public nuisance by peeing in alleys, or all of the above.  That is clearly profiling, and totally illegal.  We have staffs of lawyers who will protect the rights of the drunken public pissers to the fullest extent, and warn all police officers that we will go after their badges if they engage in this type of blatant discrimination.  Come on…let’s all get along…after all, when people gotta go, they gotta go.”

State governments seem unfazed by the federal sword rattling, and are proceeding with crack-down plans regardless. 

All stories in Bizarreville are fiction, even the ones that seem so real.

The President and his crack staff of spendaholics had made campaign promises to not come up with any new taxes.  But they still had the insatiable appetite to spend, spend, and spend a little more.  Like a 400-pound chowhound sitting behind a plate of savory double bacon cheeseburgers, the temptation was simply irresistable.  Yes, they would engorge themselves with those meaty burgers…but how would they pay the tab?  What sucker could they get to pick up the check?

The President had an idea….roll back old tax cuts.  Naturally that wouldn’t be a tax increase, per se.  It would just be the expiration of a tax decrease…in his mind, a totally acceptable loophole that could withstand the “depends on what the definition of ‘is’ is” kind of legal scrutiny.  Moreover, it would be an action that the President could undertake and have a complete illusion of a clear conscience.  After all, he had previously made speeches about the millions of job loss avoidances from his stimulus programs….this latest idea was certainly no more a truth-stretcher than that one.

So, they rolled back the Bush tax cuts, all of them:  the ones that benefited the filthy rich bastards, the ones that helped the semi-filthy middle class creeps, and the ones that gave a spark to the not-too-filthy lower incomers.  Oh, there was joy in the White House, and high-fives all around as the nasty tax cuts finally met their maker.

But then, Gilbert Shnoodle, senior adviser to the President, suggested they go ahead and roll back the Reagan tax cuts.  “Sure!” cried the staffers, “Why not?  Why not take a little more hide away from all those greedy SOB’s?”  So, they immediately passed legislation to cancel those old Reagan tax cuts, driving top marginal rates to 70 percent.  By this time, the martinis were flowing freely, and any inhibitions about being a  radical dirtbag flew out the window. 

Another staffer suggested:  “Why stop there?  There have been many Presidents who have cut taxes over the years.”  Before you knew it, they had rolled back the Nixon, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Truman, and Hoover tax cuts.  By the time it was over, the average tax rate was 62%, and the top marginal rate was 94%.  The staffers were so ecstatic, they went ahead and had a toga party.

There was some public bemoaning and bellyaching about this new radical tax policy.  But Administration officials insisted that the President completely abided by his promise of no new taxes…never said anything about unearthing some of the golden oldies.

All Stories in Bizarreville are fiction, even ones that seem sorta real.

The Bizarreville government has just proclaimed that officially accredited journalists have carte blanche rights to stalk the victims of their stories.  This ruling came on the heels of the flap over reporter/author Joe McGinniss moving into a house next to Sarah Palin in order to gather material to write an upcoming book, Sarah’s Alaskan Secrets.

“Journalists need to be able to research their stories,” said Phillip Smellburn, a government spokesman.  “And there’s no better way that we’ve found than good old-fashioned stalking.”  The spokesman pointed to new stalkological advances in binocular resolution, digital video compression, parabolic dish sound capturing, an discreet audio filtering that helps even relatively inexperienced stalkers stalk like crusty old pros.  The captured information with new equipment is so much juicier than the dribs and drabs uncovered with the old equipment, and this ultimately makes for a more tangy story that people will actually want to read.

And this was a key reason for the ruling.  Smellburn noted that fewer and fewer people are taking time to read news stories, investigative articles, or books for that matter.  People say that it’s all too darn boring.  Newspaper subscripations, magazine subscriptions, and book sales have correspondingly plummeted.  By making stories full of scathing pieces, risque vignettes, and snippets of uncouth quotations that can be trimmed out of context, readers will flock to the stories, and help rebuild lost readership.  “And keeping people’s reading skills high is good for Bizarreville.”

Critics have been outraged and appalled by this ruling as “unconscionable in any kind of civilized society”.  But Smellburn is quick to point out that “things aren’t all that civilized anymore.  What’s your point?”

Disclaimer:  all stories in Bizarreville are fiction, even the ones that seem so real.

Several states in the Midwest and South hurriedly passed new laws prohibiting citizens from using the new “N” word in public.  It is hoped that tougher enforcement will control the outbreaks in violence that have occurred since the Obamacare bill was passed, and the emergence of this new derogatory term.

The first reported incident happened in a cozy little bar in a small Indiana town, when one slightly inebriated tea partier called a middle-of-the-road independent “Nancy” in front of all the bar patrons.  Before you knew it, there were “Nancy” calls being shouted throughout the bar, leading to fistfights, broken bar stools, and many pints of spilled beer.  No apologies were given.

The story made national news, as an example of the pent-up frustration and anger stemming from the hyper-partisanship over the Health Care debate, and the raging disappointment over the performance of the nincompoops in Washington.  But others around the country soon jumped on the bandwagon, and Nancy cat-call incidents started popping up here, there, and everywhere.

Most leaders seemed to understand that there was frustration.  But using the Nancy-word took it to a new level…using a term that has come to mean an unscrupulous lying incompetent commie bozo…ouch.  Chiefs of police around the country have said that there is no way that they will allow this kind of pinko epithet to go unchallenged in today’s politically correct world….and will be invoking a no-tolerance policy on the name callers with harsh consequences.

Curiously, liberals have recently called other liberals “Nancy” supposedly as a term of endearment.  However, when overheard by anyone right of Mao, snickers and chuckles have ensued…as they made fun of the naive guy who just got slammed by his buddy.

Police say that the crackdown on Nancy-catcallers has begun, and is being applied whether used as endearment or used as a mega-insult.  “We can’t take chances,” said one chief.  “We will assume anyone using the term is being derogatory with it.”

Girls named Nancy have complained that no one will be able to call them now, without fear of punishment and possible jail time.  Officials say that they understand the predicament, but have advised them to change their names to Mona.

Disclaimer:  all stories in Bizarreville are fiction, but most of you figured that out already.

Bizarreville enforcement authorities report that the practice of profiling Ugly people has now been approved as a sanctioned practice.  Authorities are, in fact, encouraging all patrols to begin profiling immediately to help mitigate the wave of inappropriate behavior by the uglies.  The public’s desire to adopt the new practice stems from a recently published study from Bizarreville College of Abnormality, which concluded that ugly people created more social problems than non-uglies over the past 5 years.

Criteria for what constitutes official ugliness include, but are not limited to:  scraggly beards, too much face-hardware, tatooville, pastel-colored hair, and general ‘beaten with an ugly stick’ appearance.  But it can also include people who wear ugly clothes with holes, rips, paisley patterns, obnoxious color mis-matches, or gross food stains.

The new profiling practice will allow law enforcement and other security authorities to randomly pull these people over for interrogation and/or investigating any inkling of suspicious behavior.  They can haul their ugly asses into the Station if there is any resistance, smart alec backtalk, finger gesturing, or any other lude bodily movements.

A stampede of critics have challenged this new practice as violating ugly people’s civil rights.  They have also pointed out that ugliness is too subjective, which will almost certainly lead to borderline ugly people being harassed and mis-characterized as true Uglies.  Other critics have asked whether obesity would be considered ugly, and have correctly pointed out that there are many cute fat people.  Still others have challenged whether wearing an ugly hat fits under the ugly clothes clause.  In general, critics feel that if this practice is to stick, there needs to be standards and a rating system of some sort…perhaps even a registration requirement.

Clearly there are many tough issues raised that will require resolution in upcoming weeks.  In the meantime, ugly people are encouraged to stay home unless necessary, or be on their best behavior when out on the streets of Bizarreville.

Bizarreville auto dealers are preparing themselves for a potential onrush of new customers stemming from GM’s announcement of massive discounts on Pontiacs as that line gets phased-out.  Other dealers are concerned that the decision to sell these new cars as “used” cars may open pandora’s box of new sales gimmickry not seen since the advent of the rebate.

Dealers are optimistic in spite of the fact that Pontiac sales have been just about zilch in Bizarreville for the past 25 years, ever since GM changed its Pontiac brand strategy from high-performance, leading-edge designs to mediocre-performance, mundane crapmobiles.  “We knew it was a risky strategic shift,” commented a Marketing Manager with the former Pontiac.  “But our market research told us that customers were no longer interested in performance, styling, handling, or image.  They thought all that ‘Wide Track Pontiac” malarky was incomprehensible.  It wasn’t until many, many years later that we found that we were surveying a bunch of grammaws from Peoria…man, we really blew that one.”

All are anxious to hear details on the massiveness of the discounts.  “Hope it’s not another one of those ‘100 bucks below invoice’ scams,” lamented a shopper at Bilgewater Pontiac.  “Between that and the Employee A-plan discount pricing shell-game, we have become pretty disillusioned with pricing shenanigans by these guys…and have normally headed over to the Studebaker dealer.”  When told that Studebaker has been defunct for many years, the customer responded, “Really?  Guess we’ll have to head over to the DeSoto dealer, then.”

Many potential buyers are nervous about how Service will be handled after the dealers take down their Pontiac signs, and raise signs for a different brand, probably Asian-based brand.  “We’ll service the Pontiacs,” claimed the Service Manager at Bilgewater.  “…as long as we can scrounge up parts from the junkyards and find elderly mechanics who haven’t yet forgotten how to work on ’em.  The only other issue could be the demands from our new carline, Bangla Desh Motors…and our expectation of a steady stream of warranty issues with their rubber-band technology…that could zap our resources to work on lower priority stuff, like our old whats-its-name brand.”

Dealers will provide new customers with a signed letter from the CEO of Pontiac’s new parent company, Motors Liquidation Corporation, stating the company’s support of the line.  “I’ll state my personal reputation on it,” he said, while not fully disclosing that his current professional reputation is scooper-ready.

Disclaimer:  all stories in Bizarreville are pure fiction, even the ones that sound like they could be real.

Bizarreville updated Labor data was just released, indicating that unemployment is down a whopping 0.2 points to 10.0%, and Leaders are starting the back-patting to celebrate the corner being turned.  Critics argue that this pathetically miniscule change is not nearly enough to declare victory, but Labor Dept officials point out several other key barometers suggesting a turning tide:

• Lines at the Unemployment office are down from 2.00 blocks long, to 1.98 blocks
• Obscenities/verbal assaults on Unemployment office workers after they ask “how hard are you trying to find a job”:  down from 73 per 100 applicants to 69 per 100 applicants
• Chair kickings down from 23/day to 17/day
• Odor alert factor inside the Unemployment office building is subjective, but still rated “Red” (very putrid, processed cabbage/beer fart)
• Average grumble noise is down about 0.5 decibels, but mumble factor is slightly up
• Slightly offset by Unemployee line pushings:   up from 18 per hour to 20 per hour

Laid-off scientists who formerly worked in Global Warming Research Labs are evaluating these key trends and triggers.  They will then devise data massaging plans, fact manipulations, and pretzel logic to provide rhetoric for Bizarreville Leaders to communicate to the public as “hard facts”, then further use the information to rationalize the next wave of bailouts and economic stimulus bills. 

“These scientists have proven track records, and we are confident that they can gin up what we need.  Plus they have a high sense of urgency, having recently been canned themselves, to help devise some sort of newfangled programs to keep them on the dole,” said an administration spokesman.

Good evening.  This is Marvin Shankst, Bizarreville TV13 reporter…on the scene at Tiger’s home.  We’ve been trying to get an interview with Tiger all afternoon, but he has turned us down every time…telling me to just settle down and get some Decaf, man.  Well, I told him “Man, I don’t drink decaf or coffee of any kind…maybe a pumpkin spice latte once in a while, but that’s it.”  I guess I may have seemed a little hyper…who knows?

I tried to ask him about the tree and the fire hydrant that, as you can see from here, are damaged…but he gave no comment.  I went to the local Fire Chief and asked him about the fire hydrant, and he seemed pretty rattled.  Here’s my interview:

“These hydrants are our lifeblood in the Station.  We lose one, we put each and every home in that neighborhood at risk.  You can’t just take this kind of thing lightly.  It’s serious, real serious.  We need someone….maybe a non-golfer or someone who doesn’t park themself in front of a freaking TV watching boring golf for 6 hours on a Sunday…someone to get to the bottom of this thing.  If you don’t, you’ll have all these rich  as*!&+$  running willy-nilly over hydrants, without any regard to the impact on us firefighters.  These guys just don’t give a  s$!&  about the safety of others.  They just sit in their Drawing rooms, and do whatever you do in a drawing room…draw, I guess.  Probably just draw all day….make little doodles that they probably sell at some “modern” art gallery:  Tiger’s Doodles…a thousand bucks.  Includes a frame.  Will personally sign it for another thousand.  What a life…golf and doodles…pfffft.

Don Smerfnerd of Smerfnerd Investments is urging all customers to load up on gold, and do it now.  He says he is personally jumping on the bandwagon, joining the new cast of Gold Fever who have been coming out of the woodwork, citing the recently released Shlunkmann Economic Study that, he says, predicts gold could go as high as $2000 per ounce.

But the truth is, the Shlunkmann study, if anyone took the time to read it, never predicted gold would go to 2000.  The study itself was about self-fulfilling prophesies, the Pygmalion effect.  But it used the example if enough nutcases started predicting that gold would double in price, and ginned-up enough fear in the marketplace, it could all set in motion events that would actually cause the price of gold to double.  So, then what’s the deal with Smerfnerd?  Many of his colleagues have been wondering the same thing…why is Smerfnerd, a conservative investor, doing this?  He has never been one to buy at the high end of the market and get shmucked.

Turns out, our intrepid investigative reporter discovered that Smerf and a couple of his ex-Amway buddies devised a Buy Gold pyramid scheme.  It goes like this:  You buy some gold, then go pitch/grab some buddies to buy gold, who go hawk even more people to buy it, who then shake down some of their friends/family…and so on.  Feed the fear factor of world economic collapse, and roll out some drivel likening our situation to the fall of the Roman Empire.  Get someone to do a story of a family storing canned goods in their 60’s -era fallout shelter.  Toss in a Nostradamus prediction or two.  Develop a network of gold sellers, and grab a little commission on every layer in the sales pyramid.  Pocket some serious dough.

At some point, like all good pyramid schemes, it will all come crashing down.  Smerf will eventually run out of nimrods to suck into his web, and some people will start doing a little bit of gold dumping….then the gold price will plummet.  But by then, Smerf will likely have bailed on all his stash, pocketed a tidy profit, raked in enough commissions, and will be laughing all the way to the Caymans.  Smerfnerd could not be reached for comment.